Serial
by The Author and Self
Summary: Six months after the traumatic events that transpired in Natchez, Haley has turned to a dark path in order to cope. When Reid finds her trophies in her closet, he is forced to help her find a way out of a lifetime sentence. R/JJ M/G.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Thank you so much for reading my last story! This is a continuation of the plot of Hold Me Close and Dominance. This is about six months after the little dealing in Natchez. Haley's quit the dig at the Emerald Mound and came home on a self-induced hiatus from school, claiming she was two years ahead in study anyways. She's living with Reid and JJ now in a new apartment, better suited for a budding family.**

"_The killing was the best part. It was the dying I couldn't take." –Craig Volk_

**Prologue**

Haley sat on top of the wooden crate in the storage house just a few miles out of Quantico. This was when she was happiest, sharpest. She could clearly see her objectives and her purpose for doing things. The knife shined in the soft light of the bulb dangling above.

Spencer had noticed that recently she had been quieter. More direct with the things she was doing. Haley was less of a nervous wreck now, but she'd found a quick cure for most of her anxieties. In fact, it was the only thing that stopped the shaking of her hand nowadays.

The man bound to the wall opposite her wasn't having as good of a time as she was. He might actually have been having a bad time. He was possibly regretting the rape of that thirteen year old a few weeks ago. Haley didn't care. Carefully tied ropes extended from each corner of the storage unit, like a Medieval rack of sorts; it didn't stretch. She looked calmly at him as he squirmed up on the wall some more.

Slowly, she smiled as she slid off the crate. "Now, I think you know why you're here," she said calmly.

A muffled shriek as he saw the knife. They always did something like that when they saw it.

"Now, now, Mr. Richards, the less you struggle, the easier those ropes will be on your hands. It's a special knot I figured out. Nifty, isn't it?"

He called her a bitch through the gag.

"That's not nice," she took a long, slow cut from his right shoulder to his palm of the right hand. Now she needed to act quickly, once the first cut was made, he would bleed out pretty soon. She mirrored the cut on the left arm. "Do you know what else isn't nice?"

A scream of pain through the gag.

"You stole that girl's _life!_ You just… yanked it away for what, two, three minutes of pleasure? You're _sick!_" She sliced across his chest twice, forming an X. It wouldn't be long now. Already, the color was leaving him. "You ruthless _bastard!_ She'll _never_ have that back! And you? You'll lose something too."

He tried to say something, but Haley's knife had really dug into him. There were some intestines exposed to the outside world. As his mouth opened, blood leaked out.

"Ohh, that's not going to help _you_ out any."

Images flashed through her mind of Roger and Rita so long ago. Of her brother having to scream while she was raped in front of him. Of the bodies of the asshole that she first killed. Death has a funny habit of coming back to you in some form or another. However, Thomas Richards didn't know this as he was gasping now.

The man merely looked at her as she looked at him until he died there.

She leaned over, snapped a button off of his shirt and shoved it into her pocket. She found that she always needed to take something from the scene. She was making a necklace.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Okay, okay. I've received several comments about how people can't believe that Haley is a killer now. WHY NOT? In my opinion, Haley's been a serial killer diamond in the rough since Blood is Thicker! Read on, I think you'll warm to this story. Thanks for reading and please please review!**

**One**

"I'm home!" Haley called as she slammed the door shut on her way into the new apartment. It was around eight o'clock, a bit early. Isabelle toddled up to her to give her a hug.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" she screamed her name for Haley. Haley collapsed on the little curly haired blonde and smothered her with kisses.

"Well aren't we happy?" Haley smiled as she picked the two year old up, carrying her to the living room. She grinned at Spencer and JJ in the kitchen, drying the last dinner dish.

"Haley," Spencer smiled at her. He checked her eyes for dark circles, her bare arms for track marks, anything. It was natural for a person to change after a… a rape, but Haley didn't change… much. She was quieter for a while, and then she would go out. _Out._ It was a place now. '_Where are you going, Hales?_' '_Out._' '_What time do you think you'll be back?_' '_Eightish_.' Eightish, nineish, and tenish were times now. He just didn't know about her anymore. Before she went "out", she would be quiet, tense, nervous, and almost bumbling. But when she came home from "out", she would always be happy and cuddly. She'd suddenly become talkative. Joyous.

It wasn't right. Spencer hated it but something put him instinctually off about his little sister now. Sure, he loved her like no other man would but this was ridiculous. There was no tangible reason to be offset about her. She was a twenty-year-old girl… woman… ?

Still, there were never any track marks. There were never any dark circles unless she watched a movie with him the night before. There was always a smile, a vague way of talking of hers. And now she was looking for her own place. _Her own place!_ She's a… victim! She shouldn't have the security in herself to be seeking her own place.

Spencer was brought back to Earth by the reassuring touch of JJ. He smiled at her big blue eyes, matching her daughter's. "Where were you, Hales?" JJ asked in place of Spencer. She always had a different manner of putting things than he did. Where he sounded accusing and frightened, she sounded like she was starting a casual conversation with one of her friends at a café.

"Oh," Haley smiled and paused. Spencer saw she was thinking, and he was usually the only person to pick up on that because normally the Reids' thought processing took nanoseconds. As it did now for Haley. "House hunting. I saw a nice place in the classifieds not too far from here. I thought that maybe I could get out of yours and JJ's hair."

JJ put the last dish up into the cabinet. "You're not intruding, Hales. You've been through a lot and we realize this, right Spence?" she asked as she looked from the cabinet to her husband. "Spencer?"

The siblings had been looking at each other, analyzing. Of course Spencer knew that Haley was lying. He could detect the visible differences in her posture, positioning, a slight blush across her face. He realized that through whatever she was doing, she was the sweet Haley he met years earlier in Carrollton, GA. But she was still lying. He looked at her sternly.

She smiled weakly and shrugged at him. She hated this. Lying to her brother was the one thing she never thought she'd have to do. But what would he do if he knew? He wouldn't sit idly by and live with the fact that she was a serial killer herself. It didn't matter if her… type… though she hated calling it that… was the serial killer and rapist and abuser. She lowered her chin and looked dead at him, challenging.

"Spencer," JJ said again, purposely interrupting the mental warfare.

He ripped away. "Yeah, yeah, no, you aren't intruding," he said quickly and put up his drying rag.

"Are you two okay?" JJ asked seriously.

"What are you talking about?" Haley grinned. "I'm fine; I'm going to take a shower." She leaned away from the counter and quickly walked to the bathroom to avoid the awkward situation.

JJ looked curiously at Spencer. He was obviously, _obviously_ upset about something. He wasn't good at hiding distress, or any other emotion, rather. But now wasn't the time to ask. Isabelle wanted to play, and she needed to go down.

**A/N2: The chapters are shorter than my normal chapter. I apologize. I'm trying to get this right as this may be my last story in the plotline.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

The sounds of the water splashing against the ceramic were the sounds that told Spencer Reid that it was safe to enter his sister's room for the next fifteen minutes, half an hour if she'd had a bad day doing… whatever it was she did. He was repulsed at himself for the idea of not trusting her, but he absolutely had to check her room, profile it, if you will, he had to make sure that nothing unlike Haley was in there.

Slowly, he looked behind him and into the nursery, where JJ was putting Isabelle to sleep, and then began to slowly turn the knob on Hales' room. It opened silently, to his surprise. This was the door that always squeaked. He had given this room to his sister under the assumption that should anyone try to get in at her, the door would squeak and let the whole house know. The case was the same with Isabelle.

He looked at the hinges and saw that they were sticky with a clear, yellowish liquid. He suddenly realized that this was olive oil serving as a lubricant on the door. No more squeak, no more built in alarm system.

He shook his head, taking it as a strike one, and entered the room further to see her vanity dressers neat and tidy. There was nothing out of place except for a CD case next to the stereo on top. Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It was one of his favorites as well. What bothered him was not the nature of the CD, but the cleanliness of the vanity. He knew Haley. She lived in organized chaos; it was the way her mind worked. He didn't necessarily understand how she could live that way, but again, his genius was of a different type.

He began to look through the drawers of the dresser to see if the clothes had been haphazardly thrown in, like they were supposed to be. He came up disappointed from the first, second, third, and fourth drawer. He opened the fifth and immediately shut it, turning red. Why she had so much lace… he never really wanted to know. However, his consensus was clear: Haley's mindset had changed.

He began to turn around and make his way to the closet to investigate. Opening the closet door he saw much of the same as her room. Neat and tidy with barely a thing out of place. He looked up into the shelves above the clothes rack and saw her hats lined neatly in a row until it hit a ratty looking box that looked as though it used to hold stationary. He jostled it slightly to hear the sound of several small, plastic and metal objects. He was about to pick it up completely when he heard the shuffle of bare feet on the carpet stop in front of the open door. "What's going on, Spence?" Haley asked, holding her old clothes and now clad in sweat pants and a tank top. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Ah- um… nothing. Just checking to see if you're room's all right," he nodded, shoving both hands into his jeans pockets.

"How else would it be?" Haley asked smoothly. Inside she was about to break down. If Spencer had found anything, and she knew already that he had by looking around at the uncharacteristically pristine maintenance of her room, then she had no idea what he would do. More than likely freak out, but would he contact the police? If she explained it to him, would he understand?

"The… uh… the A/C is…" he tried a few seconds longer to pump out an excuse, but came to a blank. "No, listen, Haley, I came in here because I've been worried about you. Close the door?" he nodded toward the main door that Haley had just come through. He sat down on the bed and she stood, staring at him. "Hales… are… are you…? Where have you been going lately? And don't give me any bull about house-hunting or dating a guy. You can't possibly be that confident in yourself yet!"

"What do you mean?" Haley asked, skirting the question.

"What do you mean, what do I mean? I mean that you were _raped_ Haley! Multiple times! Victims of rape are never the same! And you… you didn't change at all. You're still just normal Haley and that's _not normal_." He straightened as he spoke, staring more intently at her.

Seeing him hurt like this, seeing him want to help but stand by unable, killed her a little on the inside. Haley couldn't keep these secrets from Spencer any more. She hated it; she wanted to spew forth the truth; and so she resolved herself. She looked at his eyes, looked past him at the wall, looked at his face again, and settled on holding her gaze on his nose. "I…" she debated more in her mind. "Just open the box, Spencer." She ran her hand through her wet hair.

"Do I want to?" he asked, not even sure of what he might find.

"No," she admitted. "You really, really don't. But I'm begging you, please open it. I can't lie anymore."

He stood slowly and walked to the closet, bringing the clattering box down and opening it, looking at the buttons curiously. "What are these?" he asked.

"Buttons," Haley shrugged, "they're… you see… they're… they're trophies."

"Trophies," he whispered so silently, one had to be listening for it to hear. "Trophies… Who owns these, Haley?" he asked just as quietly as he stared at the buttons.

"A lot of people," Haley said cautiously. "The one you're holding is my newest one."

"From… from tonight…" he muttered, still in utter shock. "And all this time you've been… this entire time… how long? How often?"

"It's been happening every four to six days since three weeks after we got back from Natchez."

"… why?" he asked in almost a whimper. He was so pitiful in that one sound. "How could you?" he asked. "How could one bring himself to this?"

"I need that control, Spencer," she argued. "The power in… in doing what I do… is overwhelming."

"You're hurting people!" he shouted. "Ruining _lives_! Innocent people's families are… I can't _understand_!"

"You can so! You know that heroin addiction you had?" she asked fiercely. "That's what it's like with me. I have to do it! It makes the world right again. It makes the room stop spinning and everything be a bit more _bearable_."

Spencer began to speak as Haley stood straight up and flipped the music on the stereo, turning it up to drown them out should JJ or Isabelle be listening in. She shook her head while Spencer still raved about the innocent people and how she was a harm to society and how she needed help. She didn't need help. He didn't know anything about what she was doing.

"Shut up, Spencer!" she said harshly.

He looked as though he had been slapped.

"I'm sorry, but that's the only way I could have gotten a word in edgewise. Spence, I never said that the people I… do justice to… are innocent. None of them are."

"None of _us_ are! We ar-"

"-And I'm not saying we're perfect!" she cut in before he could start. "But the people that used to own those buttons, they're guilty of terrible things. One man killed his wife. Another raped a thirteen year old girl as she was waiting outside of her ballet studio for her mother to pick her up! He _raped her!_" She threw her hands to her head and clenched the sides of her heads as she turned her back to her brother trying to stop the tears that had already started to flow. Her energy was so focused on holding back the images from flashing across her eyes that she fell to the floor. "She'll never be the same again, Spencer," she cried. "And no one _does_ anything about it."

"That's my job, Hales," Spencer's voice grew softer. "I-"

"You only get the smallest fraction of any statistic out there and you know it," Haley cut him off again. "I'm doing all I can." Flashes of the honey-skinned man coming towards her, his black eyes filled with lust. She whimpered: he still haunted her nightmares.

Spencer came up behind her and crouched to her level, sliding her into his lap. "Haley… I… I can see your point of view on this. Not enough is done and you're right in that. But you have to know… Haley this is murder. You could get sent to jail for… ever. Your life ruined."

"I know," she muttered.

"You need help."

"I'm not sick, just hurt," she said. "Too late for a therapist now."

"No… well, yes but… I don't know. Haley, you've put me in a strange place," he muttered.

"You're going to tell the BAU aren't you?" Haley whimpered.

"No, not until I get a good idea as to what to do about it," he muttered. She looked up at him and could see his mind working.

"Got anything yet?"

He furrowed his brow. "Haley, I'm going to take you to Vegas, okay?

"Then what?"

"Once you and I are on the opposite side of the country, I think it'll be safe to tell Hotch what you've been doing. We still might get some shock waves from the explosion, but we'll be protected for the most part."

"Now is absolutely _not_ the time to be funny," Haley said.

"I wasn't trying to be," he uttered.

"What can Hotch do about it?"

"He… Haley, this is private FBI stuff; you can't know."

"I'm already a serial killer," she offered.

"I won't tell you until later, until we get it approved, okay? Clean up your face." He stood and put the lid back on the box of buttons. "Would it hurt you to burn these?" he asked with a soft firmness.

"No. Will you tell JJ?"

"No, I'll say you're going to meet your mother," he said, eyes never moving from the box as he walked slowly to the door. "Which, by the way, you are."

The door shut, resonating echoes in Haley's mind for eternity.

**A/N: I'm very sorry it took me so long to update. I just needed that writing juice to get flowing again and I had been focusing on projects that, unfortunately, are prohibited by the author to be published on the Internet. Otherwise, they're very good stories. Anyways, I have a presentation to give on how pirates in the 1700's were a precursor to American Liberty and I'll be writing a little more then. Thanks so much for your patience and thank you so much for being attentive to my stories, never giving up on me, and reading this. I feel blessed. **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Sorry for the formatting issue last chapter. That was Chapter Two. This is Three. Again, thank you so much for reading and reviewing!**

**Three**

The pressure of the landing was making Haley's ears pop. She hated it, the sudden plummet, the give, the plummet, the give, shaking the whole time. She was buckled and clenching the armrests on both sides. "I hate planes," she muttered.

"I know you do," Reid said. He tried to be consoling, but there was nothing he could do about it. The plane was landing and it felt like what it felt like. If, to Haley, it felt like there was a power struggle in the cockpit between a member of the Taliban and the pilot, well, that's what it felt like to her. He rubbed her hand, knowing that her face had gone paper white. "It'll be over in a few minutes." He couldn't believe that he was violating the terms of his job at the BAU, even breaking federal law, in order to keep a serial killer safe. It went against every fiber of his character, but the killer in question was Haley. No doubt she had killed all those people, but for just cause, even in Spencer's eyes. He didn't know what to think anymore. He hated the fact that he had to call Hotch about it tonight.

Haley closed her eyes and took deep shaky breaths as the plane's wheels finally touched ground and began rolling extraordinarily fast. As she watched the dusty landscape beyond the airstrip whiz past, she became surprised that Hotch would give Spencer this much vacation time, a week, without reason. Well, he was going to have a reasons soon enough, and Hotch was going to blow a gasket. The plane slowly came to a halt. An hour and a half later, they were standing in front of the airport, waiting for the shuttle to take them to the Hertz to pick up a car.

The ride to the hotel was silent as Haley looked up at her big brother, driving the used Kia Sorento. "Spencer," she mumbled. "Does… she know about me?"

He looked down at her. He had noticed her changing as they left the east coast. She had become lighter, happier, closer to the person she used to be, as though simply being removed from the problem was enough to heal her emotional scars. Her main worry now as whether or not her mother would like her, not if she would get a lifetime sentence. "Yeah," he nodded. "I've written about you, how proud I am of you, usually," he added almost as an afterthought. "Sometimes you do incredibly stupid, stupid things."

"You don't understand," she admitted finally. Spencer had mixed feelings on this. One, she was starting to come out to him about it, again, he wasn't sure if he _didn't_ understand. In fact, he felt like he could sympathize with her coping mechanism. He took a sharp right nearly flipping the SUV. "My God, Spence!"

"Sorry," he gritted his teeth and let go. He wouldn't let himself get like this on the road, especially not before seeing Diana. "Hales, I'm not sure you understand what I mean. Sure, organized police and law enforcement is not enough to control everything, but… Haley, being a serial killer is not right! You can't take matters into your own hands!"

She rolled her eyes at him and nearly sprung out of the car when they reached their small motel on the Old Strip. Just blocks away, one could hear the shouts and laughter of the New Strip with its stunning buildings like the Luxor, the MGM Grand, and Paris. She grabbed her small duffel from the back, and Spencer his, and they made their way through getting the key and up the stairs to one of the rooms. "You aren't going to sleep tonight, are you?" Haley asked Spencer, annoyed.

"Nope," he responded bluntly as he pushed the door open. "You get the bed furthest away from the door."

"What if it has icky stuff all in it?" she asked seriously. "Have you ever seen a blacklight in a hotel room?

Spencer almost laughed. "Haley, I work for the FBI! I've seen a blacklight on just about everything!" He sat on his bed and ran a hand through his hair. "Haley, I don't want to hear anything from you, okay? You know what you've done." He fell back so that he was lying down, but his feet were still on the floor. "I've broken federal law for you. You've got to meet me halfway."

She sat on his bed near his head, slid down and looked him level in the eye. "You want me to meet you halfway? I'll give you some advice: the first place anyone would look for you, would be in Las Vegas. Did you know that?"

"I did, and I can do without the sarcasm," he said sourly.

"Spence, you didn't have to do any of this. I mean, I could've turned myself in."

"You're stubborn. You wouldn't have. Who knows? I might have had to chase you down with the team and arrest you myself. I couldn't do that."

"Why are we going to see Diana?" she asked after a pause.

"Because sometimes, I need my mother," Spencer said to Haley, looking at her in earnest.

--

Spencer had called Hotch, telling him the vague, very cloudy truth. Essentially it was that Haley was in some trouble, and they needed to get away for a while, and he needed some vacation days. Of course, Hotch was suspicious, but because Spencer never took vacation days, he relented.

Now they were in the little SUV again. "What should I say to her?" Haley bit her lip.

"To Mom?" Spencer asked casually. Haley didn't know how he could do it. "Just introduce yourself."

"What will she say?"

Spencer smirked and shook his head. "I don't know. She's unpredictable."

"Like… _unpredictable_?"

"No, I mean she's a hard woman to peg," he shrugged. "She won't get… violent. She tries very hard not to. She's prepared herself for this through my letters."

"Letters are different than actual experience," Haley said. "But… are you going to tell her?"

"About your late night habits? Definitely," Spencer said.

"What will she say?" Haley asked again.

"I think you should actually have a conversation with her, rather than having it vicariously through me," he said rationally, pulling to a stop. He turned to her and locked the car before she could have a chance to leap out. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't… can you blame me, Haley?" he asked, not referring to his nonchalance about Diana.

Haley looked at his chocolate eyes for a second. "No, I can't," she shook her head. "I wouldn't trust me either, Spencer."

"Do you want to talk about this now?" Spencer said rather than asked. "You can't say you aren't going to say anything about it, we're _going_ to talk about it. It's your call."

She looked outside at the nearly empty parking lot of the Home. "Ah… well… now's as good of a time as any," she shrugged. Spencer looked at her expectantly. "I… um… I… I don't really know how to start. It's kind of a strange situation."

"Who did you kill first?" he delved immediately. "What drove you to it?"

"Peter Wilson," she rattled off without a pause. "Peter Wilson, 53, six foot one, about two hundred and thirty pounds. He was wearing a black jacket with green buttons. He… he was on about to rape a little girl," she choked out the last sentence. "And… I got stuck at the light in front of the ballet studio every day. Every Monday and Wednesday there would be a little girl sitting outside waiting for her parents to pick her up. He would… he would bug her. He would follow the family home a little more and a little more each day… I… I didn't want him to ruin her."

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She inhaled sharply. "I didn't want her to die the way I did," she continued, looking at her brother. "And then I remembered how good it felt when I saw the life fade from Rene's eyes after the last blow of that iron. It felt so… I felt like there was finally some control back in my life. And I felt like… like I was saving you. So… so I saved the little girl too."

Spencer was quiet for a minute. How could he tell her that killing in one way was right and in another way wrong? Was there even a right and wrong? He didn't know. He could only squeeze her hand as she recounted her first prepared kill. "Spencer, people say that serial killers lose all emotion, but… I feel things. I feel… I feel trapped right now. I need to get out of this car."

Reid unlocked the car and Haley spilled out, leaning against it as though it kept her anchored. "I know that this doesn't help anything at all, but I'm sorry about what I did. In Quantico, I don't know why, but I couldn't see that I was sorry, but out here, I really am."

"But you still feel like they deserved it," Spencer said downheartedly, confused.

"In one form or another, they deserved what they got." And then Haley took a lungful of the fresh Nevada air, as though she belonged out there, and looked at Spencer. "Ready to go in?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Four**

Nervous, fidgety, and frightened, Haley sat next to her older brother in the waiting room while their paperwork was noted and analyzed. The home couldn't have any strangers come in to see the infirm, and they made sure that each person that went in was legit. Spencer's cleared faster than Haley's, partly because they'd seen him before, partly because he was FBI. Haley ran her hand through the crown of her dirty blonde hair, which she had let grow out more, giving her an older, more feminine look about her. Her plain white tee shirt and faded, banged up blue jeans gave her a care-free look. Looking, one couldn't even fathom what went on in her mind, good or bad.

Spencer had his phone in hand, turning it over and over, slipping it from right to left, opening and closing it, sometimes he even slid it back in his pocket, only to take it out again. "Thinking about calling someone, or should I grab one of the psychologists?" Haley asked, trying to lighten her own mood. The knowledge of the moment that she would meet her mother growing closer and closer made her feel very small, like she was five and Rita was walking her into Kindergarten for the first time. After a long pause from her brother, she began to observe her nail beds as though some new development had been made.

Her brother sighed, a smart remark to Haley's question emerging, then fading in his mind, he put his phone back into his pocket, without intentions of taking it back out in front of her. "No, just… just sharing your nerves."

"Is it obvious?" Haley stuck her nails into her mouth, and Spencer promptly smacked her hand. "Sorry."

"Don't do that. You've been doing so well with not biting them," he chided.

"Well," she gulped. "I've had other stress relievers for the past few months. I guess I'm feeling withdrawals."

"You want to," he dropped his voice, "_hurt_ someone?"

"No. I never have _wanted_ to; in fact, it's very involuntary, but I miss the _motions_, the feeling of it all," Haley uncrossed her legs and then crossed them the other way. "But, if it makes you feel any better, while I was doing what I did, when I came home, I missed us being able to talk."

"Yeah," Spencer had a glimmer of a smile dancing on his lips. "I did too, but it's not the same now."

"It won't ever be again," Haley finished her brother's thought. "But we can get it close, can't we?"

"We'll see if getting close isn't through a phone in a state penitentiary."

"I'm not sure how I feel about that," Haley sighed.

"What?"

"I mean, I know I've done wrong. And I know that for what I've done, I should be punished. But what I did, I did to bad people, people that needed punishment themselves. It's weird, really weird."

Spencer looked at her intensely, seeing the hopelessness of her logic, which he knew was circling and circling in her head. If only she knew the strings he could pull, the weight an FBI agent carried. If she knew, there would be an end to her logic, but instead she went round and round the racetrack, taking only the left turns she knew how to take. It would put her mind at rest a little more if she knew that it was possible to take a right. But she wasn't supposed to know. He said nothing, mulling over this development in his sister's emotions. He was, of course, glad that she knew there were repercussions for her actions, because that meant that she could recover.

She wasn't psychotic.

Spencer could sleep tonight.

"How long could it possibly take to clear my papers?" Haley uncrossed and then crossed her legs again. She stood and paced a little.

"You're new, and you came without warning," Spencer reasoned with her. "Sit down, and let's not think about Quantico."

"Okay," she sat down and rested her head on his shoulder. "What are we going to think about?"

"Nothing. Is that okay with you?"

"I have to think about _something_. I feel obsolete if I don't."

"What do you want to think about?"

"JJ and Isabelle," Haley said quickly. "They'll be worried."

"That's actually who I was thinking about calling earlier," Spencer said. A lie.

Haley nodded in approval.

"Reid, Haley?" called the woman at the desk and Haley popped up, going to her.

Spencer looked at her as she went lightly to the other woman. He fidgeted a little more, seeing that Haley could get in and stood, on his way to the door to lead her to Diana's room. Seeing his mother didn't worry him so much anymore. If he were to truly have schizophrenia, he would know by now, right? He hoped.

Right now, distracting Haley was his main priority. That was part of the reason he chose his hometown to take her. In his mind's eye, Las Vegas was the most distracting city in the United States. Seeing her mother was a distracting thing. Wondering what her brother was up to was a distracting thing.

She flashed a white smile at him as she walked over, waving her drivers' license that they needed for ID. "All right," she breathed. "Let's go."

--

They approached the day visitor's room where Diana sat reading a book in one of the over-stuffed chairs. Haley could pick her out immediately. "She's got our hair color," she whispered to her brother. "And she's tall."

Spencer saw his sister's eyes widening, her mouth trying to form words. Her hand grasped his and squeezed. "Are you ready to talk to her now?" he asked.

It was a couple of moments until Haley nodded quickly. Spencer led the way. "Mom," he grinned at her.

Diana beamed back at him. "Spencer, sit down and…"

"I'm- I'm Haley," she stammered, not sure whether to shake hands, or to hug, or to cry. So she sat down.

"I remember you from Spencer's letters," she said with a little smile. "Haley, it's great to finally meet you. I," Diana paused and inhaled. "I never thought I would see my daughter again. Your eyes stayed blue."

"Just like yours," Haley's voice cracked. "I… I don't know what to say."

"Spencer says you attend Yale," Diana said. "That was only his second choice you know."

"I know, I know, I could have gone to MIT and followed in his footsteps, but I'm not a technical person. I think of math and science practically and usefully, but that's the extent of my… fondness of the subjects. Literature, history, and language are my forte. I think they're just… _decadent_. I'm a major in Anthropology at Yale, sort of attempting to roll all of my loves into one career," Haley stammered through her whole spiel. "I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm a moron… I'm just nervous."

"Your father did the same thing," Diana acknowledged. Her eyes widened as Haley shifted slightly at the mention of her father. Those were old wounds.

"_I already have enough on my plate."_

"_I don't want another freak kid."_

She swallowed the tears. She even thought that she was at the point where she could deal with the fact that William hadn't wanted her. Fool.

"Haley?" Diana asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," Haley said quickly. She looked at her mother and realized that there was no strong wave of emotion that was evident, at least not an emotion comparable to Haley's own. But what did she expect, a tear-felt reunion? Probably, Haley was a romantic, after all, but life was no fairy tale.

How could she have thought that it would be magical? Diana was sick, and she probably didn't understand the full implications of this meeting. Haley then realized that her anticipation for meeting her mother was emotion wasted. But still, there was a feeling toward Diana, almost a psychological connection. How else would Haley have been able to pick her out of the room of people almost instantly? There had to be something. Haley was sure that underneath all of those medications, Diana Reid was overcome.

She had to be.

Right?

"I need to go," Haley said quickly and tearfully as she shot like a dart out of the room.

Fifteen minutes later, Spencer found her in one of the hallways, leaning up against the wall and hyperventilating. Without asking why she ran, or if she wanted to go back, Spencer looked down on her softly and led her to the car to take her to the hotel room.

--

"Hotch?"

"Reid, what are you doing? You're taking vacation days. Take them to the fullest."

"I'm, Hotch, I'm not really on vacation."

"Did you lie to me?"

"No, not technically, no. I wasn't lying about Haley being in trouble; I just didn't tell you the degree of the trouble she was in."

"What's going on with her?" Hotch asked protectively. Haley was like an older sister to his son, and she was like a daughter to him. "She's not on drugs, is she?"

"No. She's… she had another addiction. Worse."

"Reid, tell me."

"Those killings, the bodies that were reported in the woods a few weeks ago?"

"Yes? What're you saying?"

"Haley," Reid choked. "She did that."

"_She what?_"

"Shh!" Reid whispered. "But, Hotch, before you jump to any conclusions, you need to know the whole story. The people she… she killed… were bad people, sometimes even rapists or murderers themselves. It's almost a hero complex for her, in the most literal of terms. She sees herself as saving the victims of her victims. She's avenging herself."

"Because of the rape… Is there a way to prove that her victims were felons?" Hotch asked switching suddenly from sentimental to authoritative.

"We have her word, and I'm assuming Garcia's computer savvy. But Hotch, you know what I'm calling you about right?"

"A list?"

"Put her on a list."

"Reid, with how active she's been recently, we might have to bypass the waiting period on that list. She might have to come immediately."

"She's… she's so young," Reid said hopelessly.

"Not so much younger than you were," Hotch said reasonably.

"But there is a list for this?" Reid asked.

"And once confronted, those that were being watched have to go through a psychological analysis," Hotch answered.

"She can be helped?"

"We can try."

The sound of the shower turning off could be heard on Spencer's side of the line. "Let me know, Hotch, please."

"Bring her back to Quantico, and we'll be able to tell her the whole truth. I'm going to let the director know now."

Spencer hung up the instant Haley came into the room, having absolutely no time to wipe the conspiratorial look off of his face.

Haley furrowed her brow, looking him up and down. Another instance when her brother was looking guilty as she came out of the shower, and because of the results of that first instance, she judged that this one wouldn't go much better. "What's going on, Spence?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Five**

"Spencer, what's going on?" Haley asked again, agitated.

He raised his finger cautiously, telling her to wait a minute as he closed the blind of the motel window, looked through the peephole, and sat down on his bed, sighing. "This is classified. I can only tell you so much here, and then you can't say anything else about it until we get back to the BAU in Quantico. Clear?"

Haley nodded quietly and sat down on the other bed. "Clear. You told, didn't you?" Her voice was still hushed. "And you're going to take me to the BAU to be arrested?"

"Wrong," Reid said. "You won't be arrested… we hope."

"We?"

"Me and Hotch."

"So he knows?" Haley moaned.

"He has to, Hales," Spencer sighed. "Now, do you want to hear what I was talking about? Part of it, anyway?"

Haley nodded vigorously. "Please."

"Do you know how Garcia was recruited?"

"She told me that she was a well known hacker," she said slowly. "And they came and found her. She didn't tell me much more than that."

"She didn't tell you how they found her?" Spencer rolled over on his stomach so that he could directly face his little sister on the other bed.

"Not really," Haley went on cautiously. "She said that they gave her a… a choice… Spencer, is it really true? The FBI has criminal… _lists_? Is that what you and Hotch were talking about?"

"Shhh!" Reid whispered sharply. "I can't tell you now."

"You didn't tell me _anything!_"

"I prompted you, didn't I?" Spencer raised his eyebrows mischievously.

Haley sighed. "So you can't tell me any more than that? Who are you, James Bond?"

"I'm serious. Regardless of looks, I'm still an agent. I have to uphold the standards," he stood up and began pacing. "Our plane leaves early tomorrow, and I know you can't sleep in the air, so get some rest now, Hales."

"Commercial flight?" Haley asked hopefully.

"The BAU jet," he corrected.

"Crap," she groaned. "Is Hotch gonna be there?"

"More than likely."

"At least I can trust the pilots."

"Go to bed," Spencer snickered. "We're getting up at four."

"Ew," she giggle-groaned as she finally settled, and in minutes had the comforter pulled over her head, light snores emitting from beneath.

Spencer was restless. He could only watch her as she rested peacefully, finally. He hoped that no nightmares would come to her tonight; he so hated her being scared.

The sad thing is that she would be until she got the whole story. He knew his sister, and she would prod and pry until he told, or until he had to tell her in Quantico. Then would come the choice: Join or Die. The young agent shook his head; surely it wouldn't be that dramatic!

He shook his hair out vigorously and ran his hands through it a few times, making it unbelievably fluffy, and he fell back on his pillow, still unable to sleep. He did this when he was emotionally charged, and Haley, so opposite him, could sleep through anything but a plane ride.

Finally he huffed, resigned himself to the fact that he would get no sleep until the matter with Haley was resolved, and turned off the light.

--

"Reid," Hotch welcomed as he and Haley walked up to the plane on the dark runway. Sleep still taunted her as she blinked up at Hotch. She'd put her make-up on in the plane, right now, she didn't care. Hotch had seen her look worse.

"I'm sorry we couldn't get together under better circumstances, Haley," he nodded toward her.

"Recently? When have we gotten together under _good_ circumstances?" Haley asked cynically. "So, I assume you know?"

"This isn't the place to talk about it," Hotch said in a warning tone. "Get on the plane, we'll chat there."

Haley found it mildly amusing for Hotch to use a word like 'chat' but swallowed her grin and lugged her duffel into the nicely decorated BAU plane. She was never in here doing something enjoyable, excepting the first time she flew to Quantico to live with Spencer, but now things had gone bad.

Maybe this list thing would make things better. She liked to think that; it was the only thing that had allowed her to sleep last night.

Looking at her brother, she could see that he hadn't had any sleep at all. He was awake when the alarm went off, and already halfway packed. He had dragged her out of the bed and thrown her into the bathroom with the words: "Do… do your morning thing!" Haley found it amusing that he thought she could do her morning thing without her things, so she just splashed some water on her face and brushed her teeth, because Spence had thankfully overlooked the toothbrushes when he had made his whirlwind through the bathroom.

She sat in one of the swivel chairs next to Hotch, while Spencer sat in the booth at the table, legs hanging out the side so he could properly face them. Before Haley knew, the plane was already up in the air and her panic had come and gone in a wave. She couldn't understand, that even in this situation, her silly fear would still rear its ugly head.

"Hotch, what's this list?" Haley asked after a few moments of awkward stares. "Can it help me?"

"So he told you that much?"

"I know Garcia was recruited for the FBI due to her hacking skills, so I assumed that the conspiracy theories about FBI criminal lists were true, so I assumed she was on a list, and I assume that there's a list for people like me," Haley shrugged. "I'm not thick."

"I never said that," Hotch raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure you're okay Haley? You seem short."

"I'm sorry if I do. I've been through a lot lately," she sighed, her eyes widening. "And right now I'm trying not to fall asleep in this chair. Please tell me what's going on."

The sound of the jets on the plane were the only noises for a while. The small whir serving as an ambiance to fuel the awkward moment. Hotch looked first to the overhead compartments, then at Haley, taking a deep breath. "You're right about the lists," he said quietly, as though being overheard by Reid would ruin the process, whatever that was. "And, Haley, I've been working with the Director, and he's reviewed your… your victims, and we're this close to having you on a list." He pinched his index and thumb fingers to illustrate his point. "You fit all qualifications."

"Most, at the least," Spencer said, not looking at the pair across from him, but out the open window next to Haley's head at the bright red orb of the sun beginning its daily ascent. "If you're put on the list, we'll bump you past the waiting period, seeing how you've made your way well past four victims."

"Talk _to _me, not _at_ me," Haley interrupted, looking pleadingly at her brother. "Spence, I'm still Haley. Look at me!"

He turned and looked her dead in the eye, there was a glimmer of softness that he gave to Haley, JJ, and Isabelle, only to the women in his life, and then it was gone. He seemed lifeless, defeated. "Okay," he consented and continued to bore into her eyes with the stare he used when he was thinking. "Once we bump you, you'll be taken and given tests."

"What kind of tests?" Haley asked.

"Physicals mainly, and a psychological evaluation," he said the last two words in barely a whisper. "You can have some slack on the physical, but the psych? You need to pass that with flying colors, especially for the list you'll be on."

"If you pass but don't do remarkably, there's a desk job waiting for you in the BAU where our profilers and analysts will be able to keep a close eye on you," Hotch continued.

Haley tensed with fear. A desk job? That was the very last thing she wanted ever. It would be crippling to her to have to go and do the same monotonous thing day in and day out. Fear of eternal paperwork is part of what drove her to strive to become an archaeologist in Stonehenge and the Emerald Mound. But of course, she couldn't have that now could she? It would have been too enjoyable in her life. Of course.

"And if I pass with flying colors?" she repeated Spencer's phrase.

"You'll get field," Spencer said with a slight twitch of his upper lip.

"The Director feels you'd have an instinct there most of us wouldn't," Hotch put delicately, with a faint laugh behind his eyes. Spencer followed with a grin.

Haley almost burst laughing. Instead she smiled. "Instinct, yeah, let's call it that!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Six**

Two hours later, Spencer had gone to sleep on the longer benches, though Hotch and Haley knew that was far from the truth. The two had played poker for a bit, Haley beating the daylights out of Hotch due to her excellent cheating skills, and Hotch sometimes beating Haley due to pure, unfiltered skill.

She looked up at him questioningly as he began to re-shuffle. "Are you diverting me to keep an eye on me, or are you honestly and truly comfortable sitting across the table from me? Things have changed. I can tell."

"How could you tell that?" Hotch raised an eyebrow, dealing without answering the question. He shifted his eyes downcast so he could concentrate on the cards.

"Your posture's changed," she noted. "You keep one of your arms across your chest; for example, you'll lean on your left arm even though the lean is slanted to the right. And you're dealing faster to my side than to yours. You're nervous aren't you?"

Hotch couldn't help but crack half a smile, but then retire it quickly. That was when Haley realized that she hadn't ever seen him smile for more than two seconds at a time. "You're smart, and right. I guess it's only because of your… bad habit."

"I've stopped," she said finally. "I don't know how I'm going to control it once it rears its ugly head again, if it does again, but after seeing my brother's face when he found out?" Tears began to fill her eyes. "It was more than disappointment; it was like I had failed him as a… as a human being. And now when I'm around him I feel sub-human. And what he won't realize anymore is that I love him so much, and I hate what I've done, and what I've become." She buried her head in her hands and began rocking, trying to find comfort on her own.

Hotch, ignoring the cards that fell out of her sleeve, rose quickly and sat next to her on the bench across from his hand. He took her hands from her face and gave her a tissue, struggling for words.

He was a father of a boy, and he had never even had this experience with a girl—young woman—before. And though he had become less tense due to the revelation that she had organized emotions more than random and violent feelings, he had no idea how to give her solace.

By now she was hugging him, still sobbing, and he could feel the tears landing on his white shirt, knowing there'd be a stain there from her eyeliner that she had applied once Spencer had left to sleep. He had to think, what would he say that would make her at least stop crying?

Nothing, of course, like all the Reids he knew, she had to make up her own mind about doing what she wanted, and right now, it didn't seem like she wanted to stop. Apparently, this had been bottled up inside her for quite some time and she felt like it needed to come out. Right on Hotch's shoulder.

He lifted his hands to her shoulders and pulled her away so that she could face him properly. She was a mess, and he could tell that Spencer not trusting her was tearing her up inside. "Haley, I don't think crying will solve this issue, do you?"

"Not really, but it makes me feel better," she sniffed. "You probably think I'm _psychotic!_" She tried to wipe the tears away and look natural.

Hotch couldn't help but really smile now. At this moment, Haley wasn't a genius, a rape victim, or a serial killer. She was a twenty-year-old girl that needed advice. "Haley, seeing this, I know you aren't psychotic. Actually, I think you're the opposite of that, maybe the most sane person here. You need to know that I still trust you."

"You do?" she blinked back more tears, but Hotch could tell those were of a different sort than the tears of despair shed moments ago. "Thank you so much, Hotch."

"And maybe you can talk to Reid about this?" Hotch inclined his head behind him at the sleeping genius.

Haley looked down. "I don't think he wants to even look at me anymore. No less talk to me."

"He may surprise you," Hotch suggested. "He surprises me all the time."

She took a few deep breaths and smiled at Hotch, whose smile had faded away as soon as it came. "Okay," she gave in. "All right, get up, I'll talk to him."

Hotch obliged and scooted out of the bench to his own side where his abandoned hand still lay on the table.

Haley slipped out of the booth and walked cautiously over to where Spencer slept. Getting down on her knees in the surprisingly plush carpet of the plane, she looked at him for a second. "You aren't asleep," she whispered.

Spencer opened his eyes, and could see his face mirrored twice in her big blue eyes. "Yes I was," he muttered. "You woke me up."

"Not just now, though," Haley continued her point. "You were eavesdropping!" Her voice still a whisper, Hotch pretended not to be paying much attention by looking through a manila folder with all sorts of legal documents within.

"You were going to tell me everything you told Hotch, either way," Spencer nodded. Then waited for Haley to speak.

"Well… you heard me before, and I love you so much. I never want to see you hurt the way I hurt you again. And I've stopped, what I did was stupid, very, very stupid. You believe that I'm sorry, right?" Haley's eyes began to fill with tears once more.

Spencer sat up and slid down on the floor with Haley, so he was semi-eye level with her. He sighed. For a while, he hadn't had his full trust in his little sister, or much faith in her sanity. He could tell how much he was damaging her and that killed him. All he wanted was for her to be safe. The responsibility she'd have to accept if she passed her examinations would not keep her safe.

"Spence?" came a broken voice, bringing him back.

"Hales, I'm not the one that should be forgiving, and I don't know who is, but yeah, if you want me to, I'll forgive you. I do. I just want you to be safe, and… happy. Please. I haven't seen your smile in forever. Please smile."

Haley flashed her pearly whites and sat, subdued and tired in front of Spencer. "I'm worn out now," she admitted with a genuine smile. "Got a headache coming on."

"Because of the chemical changes your brain does through when you cry, a headache might be a signal to give it a rest," he paused, smiled, and continued. "Emotional tears, as opposed to tears shed while say, chopping an onion, contain neurotransmitters that mark evidence of a chemical change during great relief of tension and stress. Crying also causes tension in your neck, which can—"

Haley kissed Spencer on the forehead. "I know," she muttered. "I'm going to go rest up before the examinations."

"You should," Spence smiled, keeping it concise. "I'll wake you up when we're within half an hour."

He messed up her hair, which he loved to do, moved to the booth with Hotch, and started dealing.

"Don't cheat like your sister," Hotch warned him.

"I cheat _better_ than my sister," Reid smiled, still worried about the tests to come.


	8. Chapter 8

**Seven**

Haley had been terrified again as the plane had landed, but never had she been as terrified as she was now.

It was funny how that worked. Being kidnapped and raped paled in comparison to facing authority, and this authority determined whether she would go to jail, or be free. She smirked to herself, of course, she could never be _truly _free, because if she passed her examinations, she would _have_ to work at the BAU.

Irony attacks a person's life in the strangest of ways. She could remember almost a year ago when she went to visit JJ in the hospital. Morgan asked what she planned to do after Stonehenge and her engagement fell through. Her joking reply was not to do her brother's job. Well, look at her now.

She hated the ladies' suit Hotch had fitted her up with. It was his idea, and the suit itself had been his wife's when she had worked, and it now fit Haley. Another trick of fate, courtesy of irony. The collar itched her, and she detested posture, and ankles crossed, she rode next to Spencer and behind Hotch as he drove the massive black SUV quickly down the road. "I never see you go to work like this," Haley grumbled to Spence, the only person in the car that she could truthfully say that to.

"You're right, and when you're pardoned from a lifetime sentence, you can wear whatever you want," he turned to her, and smirked to see how much like a lady she actually looked. "But I'd rather see you in a black dress suit than an orange bodysuit."

She sighed. "I guess," she conceded as she shot another death glare at Hotch.

The sound of a phone vibrating caused Reid to jump, reach into his pocket, and check the caller. "JJ," he murmured. He felt guilty for leaving her out of the loop, and for the past few days, there wasn't much that he wouldn't give to have her with him. She always had a pretty firm grip on things, and she probably would have handled the present situation better than he had. Still, the phone vibrated in his hand, her picture flashing up on the outer screen and fading away to reveal her name. Whenever her picture popped up, he felt more and more like a scumbag. "Should I—?" he asked.

"Answer?" Haley asked. "You should, but what are you going to say?"

"Tell her the truth," Hotch said, driving. He looked in the rearview at the younger agent. "Don't keep things from your wife, Reid."

The phone had stopped vibrating, and Reid picked it up, then he speed dialed JJ. "Hey Jayj… I'm sorry I haven't answered your calls… I'm with Hotch and Haley… Back in Quantico… Listen, I need to tell you something… It's about Haley…"

--

The room was cold and very clean cut. Not a strip of comfort in it, which was standard for a room in an FBI building. Haley squirmed a little, and wished someone would come in and sit with her while she waited for the psychologist to come in and talk to her. Already, she had taken the physical and filled out the BAU applicants' forms. She had been searched about a dozen times, though she couldn't think of how a knife could suddenly appear in her pocket, and if it could, wouldn't someone notice right off the bat? Her skirt and blazer weren't the loosest of clothing, and she tugged at the skirt, not comfortable with it at all.

She began to play with her necklace, the very one that lead to Spencer's connection between the victims when she had first met him. It gave her comfort, strangely, and it made her feel like he was in the room with her.

She wondered what her friends that had died on her account would say. Had they even died because of Haley? No. It suddenly hit her, like a slap on the face. Of course Gina, Kayla, and Sam hadn't died because of Haley's choice to take Dylan's dilemma to the camp Director. It was Edgar cross who had killed them.

This knocked everything else into perspective. Why would she have gone around with this weight on her shoulders? This led to changing her mind on most things. JJ didn't get abducted because of everyone's focus on her and Riley. It wasn't her fault that she was raped, and Spencer had to watch.

She straightened in her seat, and lifted her chin so her face would be seen clearly by the psychologist when he or she came into the room for the interview. She wasn't insane, at least not completely; she was confused and mostly self-centered, which was terrible of her. She needed to help others from feeling the way she had.

She needed to do this, more than anything, she needed to work here to better understand the things that had happened to her, and the things that will happen to others. She relaxed her shoulders, and took a deep breath as the doorknob jiggled and the psychologist walked in.


	9. Chapter 9

"_The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act." Barbara Walters._

**Epilogue**

_Six Months Later_

Haley's alarm jarred her awake at four in the morning, she slapped it off, turned on her light and woke up looking at the shelf across from her. She loved the shelf because it was _her _shelf. This was _her_ apartment, and her feet were on _her_ red carpeting as she trudged past the shelf on her way to the bathroom.

On it, a picture of her graduation from Yale with a degree in Anthropology. It was a large frame with her in the center, laughing with her cap and gown. Spencer was hugging her more tightly than she had ever been hugged. JJ, holding Izzy's hand and her swollen belly, the bump named either Diana or Michael. Morgan and Garcia on either side of Haley; Morgan beaming at the camera, Garcia was next to tears. Emily and Hotch stood on the same side of the picture, and even though they were quasi-blocked by Pen, Haley swore they were holding hands.

Next to that photo was a picture of her 21st birthday, which was a bit crazier than her graduation, of course. In front of it was her commemorative shot glass, a birthday gift from Derek. Followed by a small picture of her with Kayla, Sam, and Gina at camp with the matching necklaces. Several shots of her at Stonehenge, dirty and sweaty from a day of digging around, stood proudly with the pictures of her family. A tiny picture stood of Isabelle shining at the camera, showing her all of bright, pearly whites. Beside that was Haley's letter of acceptance to the BAU, lying flat aside from the folds lifting off of the shelf.

After spending an hour getting ready, Haley put her phone and wallet in her bag and made her way out the door with a banana for breakfast. Glad to not have to wear suits, she wore a pair of brown slacks with a forest green sweater, making her eyes pop a little.

"_First day of work. First day of work,"_ pulsed through her every step out the door, locking it, and making her way to the subway. She felt strange, and a little lost in what seemed to be a bigger world now. She assumed it was because she actually had a salary now. Money coming in and it was hers, and hers alone. Her own apartment, still, her red Jeep, and her own clothes. Scary.

She made her way down the steep steps and into the roaring subway, hopping onto the train that would stop near the BAU. She could make the rest of the walk without looking like she had run three miles. In fact, it was only two blocks from the stop to the BAU. She looked around the compartment, not finding a single seat.

"Oh, here, take mine," said a guy's voice beside her.

She raised her eyebrows at him. He was tall, maybe taller than her brother, with neat black hair. He wore khaki's with a white pressed shirt and blue tie with American flags printed on it. "Thank you," Haley said as she took a seat, while the man stood.

"Nick," he said, sounding nervous, introducing himself. "Nick Hightower."

She looked suspiciously at him. He didn't look like he would rape and murder anyone, especially with that tie. She didn't think he acted like someone that would rape and murder anyone. And he looked about as hospitable as one could be on a subway at six in the morning with his hand outstretched for a shake. "Haley Reid," she smiled at him. "Nice to meet you. I like the tie."

"Oh," he looked down and blushed. "Yeah, I'm a U.S. History teacher at a small high school just out of the city." He smoothed the tie self-consciously. "What do you do?" he asked.

Haley laughed a little on the inside and grinned up at him. "I'm an FBI agent," she winked, forming a gun with her fingers and pretending to blow it out. She'd learned that from Emily and Penelope once she'd been accepted. She could still hear Emily's voice. _Do it sexily, especially if you like the guy._

Nick laughed, and Haley relaxed inside. It had worked, and not been too intimidating to him. "What do you really do?" he asked.

"I'm an FBI agent!" Haley laughed. "I really am! That's just a joke with female agents."

"Do you carry a gun?" he asked curiously.

"Not yet, I'm testing for that in about a week. Let's just hope I have better aim than my brother," she smiled shyly. She didn't like talking about this, especially with guys. It always sort of seemed to turn them off.

They came to a sudden stop and the fuzzy speaker announced Haley's stop. "I've got to go, Nick. Great meeting you."

She pushed past him, embarrassed, and tried to get out as quickly as possible. "Wait!" he shouted before she got off. "Here's my number, call me and we'll see if we can talk a little more privately somewhere."

"All right," Haley smiled at him. "Yeah, I will."

"Great," Nick beamed at her and dove back onto the train before the doors closed and left him.

--

Haley walked proudly into the building and caught an elevator with Emily, who had just arrived as well. "You look happy to be coming to work," Emily remarked.

"Look," Haley beamed as she flashed the number at her friend.

"_What?_ You can pick up at guy at 6 AM? You're a goddess! What's he like?"

"He's a history teacher," Haley smiled and blushed a little.

"He's what you like, and that's great," Emily assured her. The elevator dinged open and they stepped out.

"Prentiss, Reid!" Hotch called them as they noticed the team heading into the conference room. Haley stood and watched Emily go. "_Haley!_" Hotch said a little more sharply, and Haley realized that Reid meant her as well as Spencer now.

Wonderful.

But it truly was, now that she thought about it.

Now she was part of the team.

**A/N: Okay! That's the end of this story. I'll continue the storyline if inspiration strikes me, and I already have a few little plot bunnies hopping around as we speak. I just have to catch one and try my luck! I hope that you've enjoyed the series thus far. And thank you for reading. Please review because I adore that sort of thing.**


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